peace and q u i e t (open)

[zabini]

Hyperion, quite typically of him, was spending his holiday working on extra credit for Arithmancy in his bedroom, classical music lightly playing as a fierce snowstorm raged outside. Occasionally he could hear the sound of the wind howling against the panes of his window. Hyperion smiled lightly to himself, the conditions could not have been more ideal. The house was quiet, as it often was, mostly due to the personalities of its inhabitants. Like his father, Hyperion was quiet, somewhat withdrawn, usually on the fringe of things than in the middle of them. His mother wasn't really loud, either, his triplet sisters were typically soft-spoken.

It was Sarabi that got on Hyperion's nerves the most. It had nothing to do with her being illegitimate, and everything to do with the fact that she was so loud. Hyperion had always supposed that she got that from her biological father, as everyone else in the house was nowhere near as high-strung as she was. Not even the youngest, only seven. But as of now, Hyperion was quite content in his studies, that was until a knock came at his door. He sighed lightly, if he had to guess, it would probably be his mother, asking him to come downstairs and spend time with the family instead of up in his room, though he wasn't firm on his estimate. "Come in," Hyperion said as he laid down his quill.

[kaia]

Kaia waited outside the door until Hyperion told her she could come inside. "Hey," Kaia said, pushing the door behind her so it was just open a crack. She knew that Hyperion wasn't a fan of Sarabi's loudness, so he would probably like not having the door open all the way. Kaia wasn't entirely sure what she was doing in her brother's room, but she had been a bit bored and had wanted someone to talk to, especially since Zahra and her mother would out of the house.

[zabini]

Hyperion nodded to his sister as he closed his book, wondering what she had come here for. Perhaps she needed something. He set his work off to the side and turned around in his chair to better face Kaia. "Yes?" said Hyperion, in the manner that someone might ask if the other person needed something. His thoughts traveled vaguely to Julie- he had offered for her to come and stay at the manor for the holidays, but she had been insistent on staying. Hyperion hoped that she wasn't lonely.

[kaia]

Kaia pulled the letter out of the pocket of her robes slowly before taking a seat. She had left the letter inside the envelope, not wanting to intrude into Sarabi's personal life, though the letter had come in seemingly for the whole family. "It's for Sarabi," Kaia said, though this was written on the envelope. "It's from her father." Kaia bit her lip after this; she had been worried when she had recognized the seal on the back of the envelope. She didn't know what the man could want with Sarabi now, but Kaia somehow didn't think it was a good thing.

[zabini]

Hyperion frowned a bit, he didn't know much of anything about Sarabi's biological father, other than that he was a Frenchman named Jacques Gillette. "I wonder what he wants, he hasn't really been in contact before," said Hyperion, finding himself to be mildly curious. Anything having to do with Mr. Gillette wasn't really his business, although he could not deny that he was curious as to why there was suddenly contact from the man. "Does Sarabi know of his correspondence?" Hyperion asked.

[kaia]

Kaia shrugged slightly, she had no idea what Jacques would want from Sarabi. As far as Kaia knew, the two had only spoken a handful of times to each other. "She doesn't know," Kaia replied. "She's out somewhere." Sarabi seemed to be out of the house far more than the rest of the Zabini kids, but Kaia supposed that was to be expected, seeing as she had more energy than the rest of them.

[zabini]

Hyperion had to refrain from saying something along the lines of "good" in response to Kaia informing him that Sarabi was out of the house. If it were up to him he would have stayed at Hogwarts for the holidays, but his mother had been relentless about having all of her children home for Christmas. Hyperion looked at the letter, the emerald green wax seal... Something told him the Gillette family was also reasonably wealthy, just judging by the elaborate coat of arms stamped into the wax. "It seems pretty thin if he's trying to catch up, you'd think it would be a lot longer if he writes so infrequently." said Hyperion.

[kaia]

Kaia nodded in agreement; Hyperion had to be right about that. It was possible that Jacques really was trying to catch up and didn't have much to say, but Kaia didn't think that was the case. She was quite troubled by the letter from Sarabi's father. "What do you think he has to say?" she asked, not sure what to do at this point. She didn't really want to open the letter and invade Sarabi's privacy, but Kaia was concerned about it.

[zabini]

"Only one way to find out," said Hyperion. He was as much against invasion of privacy as the next guy, but he was probably a bit too curious for his own good. He lightly took the letter from his sister's hands and brought it over to his desk. Using his letter-opener cautiously, Hyperion slipped the blade under the seal until he heard the familiar pop. "We can re-seal it with a charm," Hyperion said, knowing they weren't supposed to use magic outside of school, but because they lived in a magical household there was no telling who had cast the sticking charm.

[kaia]

Kaia opened her mouth to say that they probably shouldn't open Sarabi's personal letter, but shut it quickly. Hyperion seemed to know what he was doing and with luck, Sarabi wouldn't find out anyway. "Yeah, that'll be easy," Kaia replied instead, just a heartbeat later than one of her usual responses. She was generally against using magic outside of school, but this time would be an exception. Kaia was curious to what was in the letter, plus she was worried for her younger sister.

[zabini]

Delicately, almost as if he were handling something incredibly fragile, Hyperion opened up the letter. He was careful to not bend the folds too far, he wasn't sure how to fix tampered creases. He looked at it a moment, Jacques' handwriting was unusually ornate, almost like calligraphy. "It's in French," said Hyperion, "I only know a little, I could probably figure out what it means, or at least the gist, in a few minutes." He knew he had an English-French dictionary laying around his room somewhere. Placing the letter on his desk, Hyperion began looking for the dictionary.

[kaia]

Kaia nodded; she didn't know a lick of French and had to wonder why Jacques would write a letter to Sarabi in French, as far as Kaia knew, Sarabi didn't know much French either. She supposed it was possible that the two had been in correspondence before and that Sarabi knew French, but Kaia figured the family would know if Jacques had been writing Sarabi frequently. Kaia bit her lip as she waited for Hyperion to translate the letter.

[zabini]

Hyperion found the dictionary in the midst of all his other books on one of his several shelves. It stood out the most out of all of them, mainly beause it had a paper cover that was red, white, and blue- arranged in the way the French flag was. Using the book as a reference on words he was unfamiliar with, Hyperion translated the letter into English. He nearly laughed when he got the results. "He's coming to England after Christmas," said Hyperion, "he's asked to take Sarabi for tea on Boxing Day."

[kaia]

Kaia paused, then checked to make sure Hyperion wasn't kidding. "Oh," Kaia said after a moment, feeling quite ridiculous now for thinking the letter was such a big deal. If Jacques wanted to have tea with Sarabi, there was probably nothing wrong with that. He was her father, after all. "Maybe we should just put that back," Kaia added quickly.

[zabini]

Hyperion nodded, cautiously allowing the letter to fall back into its original folds. He felt rather silly for getting so curious about the whole thing, it seemed innocent enough, any father should have the right to take his aughter out for tea. It was just sort of awkward to Hyperion, the whole family situation of there being a child of the product of an affair. He just hoped he wouldn't be expected to have a relationship with Jacques, that would be weird. Hyperion picked up his wand after sliding the letter back into the envelope, trying to remember the appropriate charm.